Monday, November 29, 2010

[Vice Foreign Minister Chun Yung-woo] commented that China had far less influence on North Korea "than most people believe." Beijing had "no will" to use its economic leverage to force a change in Pyongyang's policies and the DPRK leadership "knows it." Chun acknowledged that the Chinese genuinely wanted a denuclearized North Korea, but the PRC was also content with the status quo. Unless China pushed North Korea to the "brink of collapse," the DPRK would likely continue to refuse to take meaningful steps on denuclearization. [...]

[...] Chun claimed XXXXXXXXXX believed Korea should be unified under ROK control.XXXXXXXXXXXX, Chun said, were ready to "face the new reality" that the DPRK now had little value to China as a buffer state -- a view that since North Korea's 2006 nuclear test had reportedly gained traction among senior PRC leaders.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

strategypage writes:
U.S. military planners have discovered that China's current arsenal of non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles could probably knock out five of six major American air bases in Japanese and South Korea. Oops. To make matters worse, this has become an issue as North Korea stumbles towards political collapse, and China indicates that it will assume control in the north if that happens. South Korea believes it should move north to deal with a collapse, and this plan is becoming a contentious issue with China.

Friday, November 12, 2010

From Foreign Policy's blog: Bush writes [in his new book] that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt "told Tommy Franks that Iraq had biological weapons and was certain to use them on [American] troops," a VOA article highlights. Bush goes on to say that Mubarak "refused to make the allegation in public for fear of inciting the Arab street."